imgres-4Joshua Baer, cofounder at Capital Factory and a serial entrepreneur, has announced the second annual “Move Your Company to Austin” competition.
The pitch competition will take place at South By Southwest. Baer announced the competition in his weekly Startup Digest Austin email newsletter.
Last year, Meritful, which is like LinkedIn for college students, won the competition in which it competed against five other startups.
The Ann Arbor, Michigan-based startup moved to Austin but it still kept an office in Ann Arbor.
The company’s competition, Pictrition, ended up moving to Austin on its own from Dallas.
“Maybe it’s because Austin is the most cost-effective place to launch a startup or the pipeline of talent coming out of the University of Texas,” Gordon Daugherty, a Capital Factory mentor and investor, wrote in a post on Capital Factory’s website. “Maybe it’s because of the 300+ days of sunshine each year or the vibrant live music scene. It’s no surprise that Austin is one of the fastest growing cities in the US and everyone wants to live somewhere that is growing and booming versus the alternative.”
This year, the package for the startup moving to Austin is even more lucrative than the $100,000 package awarded to Mertiful.
The 2014 Move Your Company to Austin winner will receive a $50,000 investment prize and more than $150,000 in other prizes.
The competition will be held on March 7th during the South by Southwest Interactive Festival. “Five startups will compete for a cash investment, office space, housing, moving expenses, free groceries and more in an epic pitch competition,” according to Daugherty.